Unresolved murders worrying

Many governments across the globe have either captured the profiles of their citizens onto national data systems or in the process of doing so.

Implementing a national identification system does not only help in the physical identification of the people so captured but helps in crime combat, business processes, location of people’s residences and bank transactions.

Elsewhere, all nationals have national ID cards for which reason individual cards for voting and sometimes social health insurance are not needed.

However, in our jurisdiction, every institution such as the Electoral Commission (EC), the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), or the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) awards contracts running into millions of Ghana cedis to provide ID cards for voting, pension and health care.

If the National Identification Authority (NIA) had succeeded in giving every Ghanaian and even foreigners national ID cards, there would not have been the need for some institutions to be issuing their own ID cards.

Locating major landmarks such as streets, offices and residences in cities, towns and villages is a nightmare.

Thankfully, the government, through the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) is implementing the street-naming project to try and address the difficulty in locating places in our country, unlike other jurisdictions where citizens and even visitors looking for places just have to grab a map and be able to find their bearings around.

The inability of the Ghana Police Service and other security services to deal swiftly with criminals in our society is due to the lack of a proper database of all the people and lack of an address system.

For some years now, the police have been battling with a number of unresolved murder cases although when those incidents took place, the police launched full-scale investigations into them.

Many schools of thought hold the view that if Ghana had a comprehensive database of its citizens and foreigners, crime combat could have moved from its present cumbersome nature to a more scientific one.

The Daily Graphic is revisiting the issue of the national database in the wake of the murder of the Member of Parliament (MP) for Abuakwa North, Mr J.B Danquah-Adu, in his Shiashie residence last Tuesday.

Various narratives accompanying events leading to the murder of the legislator point to the fact that if Ghana had a very comprehensive database, the police would have very little headache in their investigations into the case.

We are not raising the red flag on the slow action in the national identification process because of the tragic death of the MP but because there are more than a score of unresolved murders on the dockets of the Ghana Police Service throughout the country.

The families, relations, friends and indeed the entire country demand justice for all our compatriots who have been murdered in cold blood.

The Daily Graphic extends its condolences to the family of the MP, his constituents, colleague MPs, the leadership and the entire members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and, indeed, the people of Ghana who have lost an illustrious son.

It is our hope that the almighty God will give us the strength to bear with the pain of this great loss.